


don't leave like this (why am i in love alone?)

by silverkatana



Category: Super Junior
Genre: I'm Sorry, M/M, late night angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 09:48:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16427063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverkatana/pseuds/silverkatana
Summary: in which heechul feels so alone even when jungsoo is right by his side.





	don't leave like this (why am i in love alone?)

**Author's Note:**

> it's nearly 11pm at night and maybe i decided to write more angst because i had nothing better to do

It starts with a red rose, with an abashed smile and a shy, “Will you go out with me?”

 

It continues with an acceptance of the flower, with a radiant beam and a trembling, “of course I will”.

 

It ends with the lack of roses, with tears rolling down cheeks and an unheard, “Why am I in love alone?”

 

He lies cheek against the soft white of his pillow, skin marked dry with familiar shed tears and eyelids heavy from staying up for too long. The lights of the city glitter in the night sky through his glass window that he doesn’t have the strength to draw the curtains against, and somewhere in his tired mind he catches himself wondering  _ is he out there somewhere without me having fun in the shine of the city lights? _

 

Sleep claims him after time goes by - he loses track of how many seconds and minutes and maybe hours go by before he succumbs - and when he’s next awoken dawn light is filtering in streaks through the glass and tracing lines across the white of the pillows and bedsheets. He’s awoken by the shifting of the bed, of the faint ringing of a phone alarm, and of a scent so familiar to him it only makes his heart break more.

 

“You’re here,” he whispers out, his mind still groggy in the early morning, but sharp enough to know for sure that it’s him,  _ it’s him, it’s really him. _

 

“Go back to sleep,” the response comes quietly, dismissively, as the man opposite from him gets off the bed and throws on a suit from the wardrobe. “I’m going to be late for work if I don’t hurry, so I don’t have time to talk.”

 

_ You never have time to talk, _ he wishes he could say bitingly, but he holds his tongue, watching only as the man picks up his laptop and begins to make his way towards the living room.

 

“Jungsoo,” he calls, his voice scratchy in the early dawn hours, and in the back of his mind he wonders how long it’s been since he’s called Jungsoo by name in front of him, “What time will you come back?”

 

The man smoothens his suit and turns, and for a flicker of time his eyes soften a little, or perhaps that’s just his imagination. “Chul-ah.” A weary sigh accompanies the uttering of his name. “I told you that work is busy nowadays, so I don’t have much time. I’ll try to be back before you sleep, alright?”

 

Heechul nods his head before proceeding to bury it into his own pillow - half because every part of his body is screaming at him to fall back asleep, half so Jungsoo doesn’t have to see the bitterness that’s making itself present in every downward twitch of his lips and furrowing of the eyebrows.

 

When he wakes up again, this time by the soft tunes of Standing EGG’s Little Star playing through his phone as his alarm at nine-thirty in the morning, he sits up straight and looks around the room after rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

 

The vacated pillow next to him immaculately placed, free of any fallen loose hairs or signs of rest, clothes from the night before carefully folded and placed at the foot of the bed instead of being strewn across the floor, unworn home slippers arranged parallel to one another at the doorway.

 

If he didn’t know better, he’d think that he was the only one living in the house.

 

He busies himself throughout the day, first with finishing up the write-up to be sent to his boss via email, then ordering food in for lunch because he’s been so wrapped up with his thoughts that he’s forgotten all about breakfast; halfway through eating his regular order of jjajangmyeon he lifts his head and casts his gaze across the house, across memories held in little photo frames or in the form of objects that he hasn’t gathered the courage to look at for a long time.

 

The regret and nostalgia hit him all at once, and he lets his chopsticks rest on the rim of the bowl for a moment as he stares across at the collection of small framed photographs clustered together on a low table at the corner of the living room; and then there’s the camera that lies abandoned on the white bookshelf, the one consisting of hundreds of silly photos and videos of them being themselves, of their small dates and of them being with one another. To the right of the bookshelf sits the tall, empty glass vase that Heechul has to take his eyes off because it reminds him too much of the roses that Jungsoo used to buy.

 

Back when they were in love with one another.

 

He downs the rest of his meal at a speed that’s double, maybe triple of his original eating speed, almost choking as he tries to swallow too many noodles in one go. He slams his chopsticks down and brings the plate into the kitchen to place it into the sink, turning his back on the living room brimming with too many memories before he moves to do something stupid - like taking down that dusty old camera and looking through every picture, perhaps.

 

He does it anyway.

 

Brushing away the dust particles that have accumulated on the screen of the camera reveals a gallery of smiling faces; of them, just the two of them, hand in hand with smiles so wide reflected on their expressions that their eyes crinkle and they seem almost as radiant as the sunlight that shimmers behind them or as warm as the yellowish hues of the streetlamps illuminating their journeys along the streets of Seoul in the dark 10pms that they used to enjoy.

 

One, in particular, catches his eye, and his fingers move to click on it before his mind can process what is going on. It’s not a photo this time, but a video, and he rushes to switch the camera off before he puts himself through more heartbreak.

 

But then his hand freezes in its place as audio begins to play, and the darkness lifts from the screen to reveal an empty street, slicked grey with recent rain and tinted yellow with the glow of after dark street lights. 

 

“Jungsoo-yah!” He sounds happy in the video, his voice booming almost boisterously across the too-silent living room, and it’s followed shortly after by a short peal of laughter that he almost has to strain to recognise as his own because god, how long has it been since he’s felt that happy?

 

He hears his own name being uttered, and then Jungsoo comes onto the screen, a mess of flailing limbs and beautifully wide smiles and shouting, and he feels his grip on the camera loosen for a moment.  _ When was the last time Jungsoo addressed me so warmly?  _

 

“Let’s go!” The video shakes, and there’s the thud-thud-splash of footsteps slapping against wet pavements and they’re running around in the streets at night when no one else is around, laughing and having the time of their lives with each other.

 

The shaking suddenly stops, and there are the faintest sounds of panting before the camera swivels again. Heechul is met with the view of his younger self - not much younger, really, just a year or so - and he almost winces at the clear difference between himself at present and back then, written too clearly in the way his lips curve, in the way the eyebags behind his eyes have grown so much darker, in the way his laughs rings hollowly in his ears and in the way he’s forgotten what it’s like to hear “I love you” said to him with sincerity.

 

It’s surprising what a difference happiness can make to one’s life, he supposes.

 

The two of them one year ago are waving at the camera, smiles drawn across their lips from the bottom of their faces all the way up to the creases of their eyes. Jungsoo lets out a light tinkling sound as he grins at the camera - and then he moves his head swiftly to peck at Heechul’s temple, and the latter ducks out of the way just in time with a startled laugh and a playfully indignant  _ hey, you didn’t give me any warning! _

 

The video clip ends there, and in the dark of the living room Heechul lowers the old camera that has made every memory surface too piercingly clear in his mind. It makes him feel nauseous almost, and he’s not entirely sure why or how, but when he stands on his feet and moves away from the living room he’s barely steady on his feet and his brain is spinning faster than he can think.

 

For the rest of the day, he drowns himself in work, in projects that he doesn’t need to complete until a month later, in answering emails and writing out optional write-ups.

 

At eleven fifty-seven at night, when the sky’s long gone dark and city lights are beginning to dim and he decides to shut down his laptop and draw the curtains across the windows, there’s the sound of the front door opening.

 

“I kept my word,” comes the hauntingly familiar voice from behind him, and he turns to see Jungsoo still dressed in his perfectly-ironed suit, one hand holding his laptop and the other a stack of documents. “I came home before you went to bed.”

 

Heechul doesn’t know what to do except to crack a smile that he hopes Jungsoo can’t see through; he wonders if the latter can sense how stifling the air between them is, or perhaps it’s become abhorrently clear to him after he was reminded of how they once were.

 

“Go and get changed and take a shower,” he hears his own voice echo dully to Jungsoo, “I’ll wait for you instead of going to sleep.”

 

Jungsoo shoots him a gentle smile - which immediately makes some part of his brain mull over its genuineness - and nods, opening the wardrobe to grab a fresh change of clothes and moving away to the shower. Heechul takes to leaning against his pillow and scrolling mindlessly through his phone; at some point he gives up on looking through Instagram and sets his phone aside, sick of seeing every other friend of his posting too much about their sweet little relationships.

 

The sound of running water stops after a matter of minutes pass, and Jungsoo steps into the bedroom, changed out of his office suit and outfitted in more comfortable loose clothes that hang off his slender frame.

 

“I’m sorry for not being home early nowadays,” Jungsoo says, shifting to slip into bed next to Heechul. The younger (by 9 days, but still younger) of the two mutters an acceptance to his apology  - what else can he do, after all, when the same apology has been heard for the past couple of months?

 

“Shall we sleep, or do you want to chat?” Jungsoo questions, but Heechul isn’t blind to the dark circles that are prominent under both of their eyes and the way their words have become weighted down with tiredness.

 

“Let’s just sleep,” Heechul murmurs, “I’m tired.”

 

Jungsoo nods his head in compliance, and Heechul comes to the realisation that he can still read the emotions - the slight relief and overwhelming weariness - in Jungsoo’s eyes clearer than morning light through glass windows.

 

He reaches out to flick off the light switch, and the entire room is enveloped in a comforting darkness. His head settles itself onto the pillow, but this time when he turns to the side his breath catches for a second in his throat as he’s met with Jungsoo staring right back at him.

 

_ It’s been a while since even this has happened. _

 

“Goodnight,” Jungsoo mumbles out, his words slurring as he begins to succumb to the intoxicating pull of sleep, and Heechul barely gets out a similar reply.

 

“Jungsoo,” he whispers, and his breath hitches in his throat for the second time and it gets hard for the words to come out the way they’re supposed to because now tears are welling up in the corners of his eyes and his sleep-deprived mind is working faster than he can process, “Don’t leave like this.”

 

“What do you mean?” Even in the dark he can feel Jungsoo’s gaze on him. Perhaps it’s the way he’s breaking down in the middle of the night, or perhaps it’s the way he’s crumbling like he never does. “I’m right here.”

 

He buries his head in his pillow, feeling the tears slip down his cheeks and wet it once again. 

 

“It’s not the same,” he breathes out, “It can’t be the same.”

 

_ If you’re right here, then why does it still feel like I’m in love alone? _

 

“Jungsoo,” his voice cracks, vulnerable and lost and so alone in the company of his partner, “Please don’t leave me like this.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
